Visalia splash pad plan on hold

City is short more than $334,000 on building costs

Mar. 19, 2014

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Members of Visalia’s Rotary Clubs had planned to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on April 19 to mark the start of construction on a baseball-themed splash pad at Recreation Park, in the city’s downtown.

But plans for the groundbreaking and to build the 3,200-square-foot water play area have been put on hold indefinitely after bids for construction and materials came in so unexpectedly high that the city is coming up short $334,570 to pay for it.

Originally, the estimated cost was $400,000, with half of that money being donated by the Visalia Rotary Community Foundation, a charitable arm of the city’s five Rotary clubs.

That donation also would have given the foundation naming rights for the “Rotary Splash Park,” which was supposed to be built next to the baseball field at Recreation Park and would have been open to families attending Rawhide baseball games on hot days.

The bids ranged from $566,109 to a low of $455,173, well above the $290,000 general estimate offered by the Sacramento-based architectural firm hired to design the splash pad, said Chris Young, Visalia’s Community Development director.

And the bids didn’t include the purchase of $116,000 of prefabricated equipment the city planned to purchase if a construction contract had been awarded for $75,000 to build shade areas that would have been added if the bids had been lower than expected.

“Everybody was stunned by this number — $700,000. I don’t know how the architect could miss this. Nobody anticipated anything like this,” said Allan Fisher, chairman of the Rotary’s Special Projects Committee.

A call on Tuesday to the architectural firm, The HLA Group, wasn’t returned.

Normally, city engineers design community construction projects and provide cost estimates before they’re put out for bids. Designing a splash pad requires special skills and experience, so the city contracted with a private firm to design the Rotary Splash Park, and it estimated the project’s costs, Young said.

He said a lot of the additional costs would have come from laying concrete in multiple colors and different textures throughout the play area.

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In a presentation during Monday night’s City Council meeting, Young said getting more to make up the difference isn’t a likely option, though Rotary officials still seemed willing to try to go forward with helping pay for a splash pad in the future or helping pay for another recreation project.

“We’ve kind of got it on hold. We’d like to make it happen, but we need to make it a reasonable financial package,” said Fisher, adding that it may take at least a year or two before the splash pad project comes off the shelf again and city officials look at building at a pared-down version.

Young said he also didn’t think it likely that the project would come back for reconsideration soon, considering that Monday night the council approved raising water restrictions in the city because of the Valley’s severe drought.

“I think the idea of considering that right now — with all the talk of water conservation — may be a little tough right now.”

Visalia’s half of the money to pay for the splash pad was coming from $100,000 in city park and recreation impact fees and $100,000 in federal community block grant dollars.

The city needs to allocate the federal money or lose it, and Councilwoman Amy Shuklian suggested that it go to pay for proposed improvements at Lincoln Oval park on the city’s northwest end. Proposals for those improvements have included building walking path, installing better lighting and putting up fencing around the tiny park.

Young said he’ll likely present Shuklian’s suggestion to the council members during their March 7 meeting, along with other possible uses for the block grant dollars.

Shuklian noted that the city already has spent money on designing the splash pad and other preconstruction tasks.

“$62,000 was wasted on something that isn’t coming to fruition,” she said.

She suggested that city officials ask if the Rotary Foundation is willing to cover half that cost.

When asked if his organization might do that, Fisher said, “I don’t have a clue. If they make that request, it will go to the board.”